Jewish organizations and leaders in the US criticize (ECI) for anti-CAP advertisement.

Dear Reader,
As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before.
Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications,
like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations,
we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open
and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news
and analyses from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.

BERLIN – Jewish organizations and leaders in the US including the American
Jewish Committee, the Anti- Defamation League and Alan Dershowitz have
criticized the conservative Washington-based Emergency Committee for Israel
(ECI) for using quotes from them without permission in a full-page New York
Times advertisement published last week. The advertisement accuses
charities of funding the Center for American Progress (CAP), a Democratic Party
affiliated think tank, and Media Matters (MM), a liberal watchdog
organization.

ECI asked readers and donors in the ad to contact the
charities and ask why funds are being used to support “bigotry” and “anti-Israel
extremism” in connection with work of CAP and Media Matters.

The AJC,
which was quoted in the ad talking about perceived bias against Israel in
several specific CAP media products, issued a statement saying, “No one from the
sponsoring group [ECI], an ideologically-driven organization to judge from its
ads and other public activities, sought AJC’s consent to include reference to us
in today’s ad.”

CAP officials have “acknowledged the inappropriateness of
such bias” and they have implemented personnel and policy changes, the AJC
noted.

Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation
League, told JTA that the ADL quote slamming CAP in the ad for anti- Semitism
was issued before CAP dealt with prejudices against Israel in its
publications.

“After we raised concerns, initially we felt that the
Center for American Progress took the matter seriously and understood the
anti-Semitic nature of raising dual-loyalty canards and made sure terms like
‘Israel-firster’ were deleted from the Twitter accounts of CAP staffers where
they appeared,” Foxman wrote in an email to The Jerusalem Post.

Harvard
law Prof. Alan Dershowitz told The Boston Globe that he did not authorize the
use of his quote for the ECI ad. “MM is doubling down. MJ [Rosenberg] is
seeking support from left. CAP is trying hard to undo damage. Very
different responses from them requires different responses from their critics,”
Dershowitz said in an email to the Post on Thursday.

Critics accuse MJ
Rosenberg of using anti-Semitic language to denigrate supporters of
Israel.

Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP), an umbrella US Jewish
philanthropy organization, wrote that the ad “unjustly attacked” the
charity.

Barry Shrage, CJP’s president, described the ad as “misguided
attacks on CJP,” in an email to the Post on Tuesday. “We also made clear the
guidelines that we follow when authorizing grants that are recommended by donors
participating in our Donor Advised Fund Program.”

According to the CJP,
“Donations cannot be made to any organization that opposes Israel’s right to
exist as a Jewish and democratic state or advocates for boycotts, divestments
and sanctions [BDS].”

Jason Edelstein, the communications director for
the Jerusalem-based organization NGO Monitor, told the Post, “This is another
example in which donors don’t really know how their funding is being used. It
again shows the need for transparency, independent analysis and careful
monitoring regarding the activities of NGOs. Basically, the funding in this
instance occurred year after year without any critical questions being
asked.”

ECI executive director Noah Pollak told the Globe, “Every quote
in ECI’s ad was accurate, in proper context, correctly attributed to its source,
and taken from widely read publications.”

The Jerusalem Post Customer Service Center can be contacted with any questions or requests:
Telephone: *2421 * Extension 4 Jerusalem Post or 03-7619056 Fax: 03-5613699E-mail: subs@jpost.com
The center is staffed and provides answers on Sundays through Thursdays between 07:00 and 14:00 and Fridays only handles distribution requests between 7:00 and
13:00
For international customers: The center is staffed and provides answers on Sundays through Thursdays between 7AM and 6PM
Toll Free number in Israel only 1-800-574-574
Telephone +972-3-761-9056
Fax: 972-3-561-3699
E-mail: subs@jpost.com